And on the
second day there was nothing but dry and crumbling tongue (desmenuce)

Inside his
mouth, so that the storm in turn turn turning, went
unnoticed

Until it
swallowed all the loamed beasts and

Caged lions.

In the
desert, there is deepened thirst—and it is jungle
(oasis is too isolated, finite) with it's eye-like palms and shuttered sunlight
with leaves and leaves and, behind it, something darker which is rushing rushing always rushing until the leaves are soaked in it
and they, too, pull at him with eager arms.

Tell him:
Come, come, where there is water and Nut
to sing you into the grass hut of the night (and the grass here will be lush
and aching with an overflow of water—plenty enough for you)

He knows
it is not real and that is why he quivers when the harsh angles of the pyramids
in the distance glow dimly, ask: And what is left behind?

And
further on there is a trail of garments (half-covered in scorching sands that
might have once been Nefertiri or some other, sleeping god) leading back to Egypt.

Yet,
further:

In his
mind's eye there is no desert and he is home among his books
(looking-dreaming-lusting for Egypt, but only objectively). And on a
page (one-sixty-four?) there is a photo of a sphinx with it's nose chipped off
and he writes in runny ink along the margin (oh, what a find for some hapless archaeologist! What—that he should
discover the eggshell so long after the god had left!)

He sees
the blots and thinks they look like small, unconnected streams of

Dirty water.

[iii]

A single
black asp slithers in amongst the tossed clothes and finds it is

A white,
heatless cave

Smells
with heated tongue; frantic blood and sweat-soaked lace and even a trace of
desperation: nothing, nothing, all

Gone.

It knows
enough, and slithers on (spells a message which will

Fade, come
the next sand storm).

[iv]

Where is
the line?

Where to
cross?

Here there are no such
boundaries; except the Sphinx

The blind monster.

[v]

Only sand,

Only
nothing (sometimes, it seems, not even sky)

Only—illusion—of
water

Farther east.

And he
will keep walking (in thought, only for his

Body lies
quite still)

[vi]

The body
of the lions he trades and the head of a king—

King of kings!, and he remembers a college room

Remembers England, the opposite: cold and damp and
grey.

And what now?

What is left behind?

[vii]

A tortoise
happened by, it's shell, it seemed, the only lush and vegetative thing to be
had. And he wondered, too, if that was dream.

But no,
his dreams are not of tortoises, but revelries and wine and

Sweat,
sweat, sweat—it would seem this land is bathed in desires. And the girls,

They too, in Indian silk and nerve-patterned smiles.

They, too.

[viii]

Ozymandias, Ozymandias!

The words
twist and bend on the sand until it is a tree—ripe and heavy.

And,
underneath,

Girls with kohl-eyes and sheer silk, holding urns.

Eyes that are crumbled, stone and
sightless; the nose, broken away—

He wakes
with the black snake curled around his waist (but not really, this is a dream)
and is certain he is not awake. Even with his last, choked breath. Even with
the Sphinx, looking the other way.

There are
only mirages in the desert.

[ix]

Sand tests
the gold-base of pyramids; licks greedily so another grain is chipped.

Like
small, toothed things that chatter quietly against the stone and the imperfect
face,

Asks: And what is left behind?

A white hat disappears within the
shifting desert, down to join the pearled cities.

A/N:
inspiration owed to Shelley and the British occupation of Egypt (as evidence of how much European
history has consumed me right now :P)

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